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“Towards Low Carbon Urbanism” from Local Environment (2012)

Harriet Bulkeley, Vanesa Castan Broto, and Gareth Edwards

Editors’ Introduction

Theoretical strategies such as those proposed by Pacala and Socolow are an important foundation for action, but a pressing question is who is going to implement them. Since national governments have often proven unwilling to take the initiative, cities and nonprofit organizations have moved to take action on their own. This piece by noted British climate policy researcher Harriet Bulkeley and her coauthors chronicles the rise of municipal action to fight global warming. Nongovernmental organizations such as ICLEI: Local Governments for Sustainability (originally the International Council on Local Environmental Initiatives) have been crucial in this effort. So have mayors, who have often taken the lead in establishing greenhouse gas reduction goals and policies. Some states and provinces also have initiated climate policy frameworks that support local action.

Bulkeley, Broto, and Edwards highlight the changing nature of urban climate policy, which over the past couple of decades has moved from a limited set of goals and strategies to reduce emissions toward a broader agenda including climate adaptation, concepts of “resilient” cities, attention to climate justice issues, and a broad ethic of “low carbon urbanism.”

Many other books on local climate planning provide additional background. Another volume by Bulkeley, Cities and Climate Change (New York: Routledge, 2013), goes into somewhat more depth on local action from an international perspective. Governing Climate Change (New York: Routledge, 2010), by Bulkeley and Peter Newell, looks at institutional challenges of planning for global warming. Local Climate Action Planning (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2012), by Michael R. Boswell, Adrienne I. Greve, and Tammy L. Seale considers municipal action in the US context. Brian Stone’s The City and the Coming Climate: Climate Change in the Places We Live (Cambridge University Press, 2012) emphasizes urban greening strategies for climate adaptation. Planning for Climate Change: Strategies for Mitigation and Adaptation for Spatial Planners (London: Earthscan, 2009), edited by Simin Davoudi, Jenny Crawford, and Abid Mehmood, considers physical planning implications of climate change, as does Spatial Planning and Climate Change (London: Routledge, 2010), by Elizabeth Wilson and Jake Piper. Peter F. Smith’s Building for a Changing Climate: The Challenge for Construction, Planning, and Energy (London: Earthscan, 2010) looks more specifically at building design and energy systems issues. In the private sector, the consulting firm McKinsey & Company has produced important analyses of the economic feasibility of various greenhouse gas reduction strategies for societies, available through its report Pathways to a Low-Carbon Economy (2009) at https://solutions.mckinsey.com/climatedesk/default.aspx. This organization has produced a famous “cost curve” (reproduced at the end of this chapter) showing that a great many actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will actually save money.

Wheeler, S. M., & Beatley, T. (Eds.). (2014). Sustainable urban development reader. ProQuest Ebook Central <a onclick=window.open('http://ebookcentral.proquest.com','_blank') href='http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;'>http://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a> Created from asulib-ebooks on 2020-08-19 19:41:35.

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102 H A R R I E T B U L K E L E Y E T A L .

Cities have been central to the evolving landscape

of climate change responses (Betsill and Bulkeley

2007). In the late 1980s and early 1990s, mirroring

growing international concern, individual cities and

small groups of municipalities began to place climate

change on their agendas. Focused on the issue of

mitigation, that is of reducing GHG [greenhouse gas]

emissions, these early pioneers argued that with their

density of GHG emissions-producing activities and

the potential role of municipal authorities in govern-

ing processes of regulation, planning, transportation,

energy provision and waste collection through

which such emissions were created, cities were an

essential part of the response to climate change.

From the initial actions of just a few hundred

cities, the key municipal associations that were

formed at this time to address climate change –

including ICLEI’s Cities for Climate Protection (CCP)

Program, the Climate Alliance, and EnergyCities –

have grown to count several thousand cities among

their membership. At the same time, new initiatives

have been formed, including C40 Cities Climate

Leadership Group, working with support of the

Clinton Climate Initiative and targeting forty of

the world’s “global” cities, the US Mayors Climate

Protection Agreement, and the European Covenant

of Mayors. This growth in the scale and nature of

municipal responses to climate change is one of

the most significant features of the changing climate

governance landscape over the past two decades.

FROM VOLUNTARISM TO STRATEGIC URBANISM

Urban responses that emerged in the immediate

post-Rio period [after the 1992 United Nations

sponsored Earth Summit conference in Rio de

Janeiro] were characterized by a distinct focus on

the mitigation agenda, concentrated among cities

in North America and Europe and increasingly

transnationally organized through the Cities for

Climate Protection (CCP), Climate Alliance, and

Energy-Cities networks.

During this phase, the membership of climate

change networks in Europe grew steadily, though it

had reached a plateau by the end of the 1990s, while

elsewhere new regional campaigns by ICLEI CCP

saw membership increase significantly in Australia

and the USA, as well as in Asia and Latin America

(Kern and Bulkeley 2009). Despite the growth in

membership, however, reported actions were pri-

marily focused on the reduction of GHG emissions

from within municipal operations – a “self-governing”

approach (Bulkeley and Kern 2006). During this

phase, municipal responses were driven by a sense

of commitment to a global cause coupled with a

realization of the additional benefits, in financial,

health, and environmental terms, that acting to

reduce GHG emissions might bring. In this sense,

municipal responses were somewhat marginal to

mainstream urban agendas, and usually voluntary

in their nature. Action remained confined to a small

number of municipalities and was primarily focused

on issues of energy and efficiency.

By the beginning of the 2000s, with uncertainty

about international commitment to the 1997 Kyoto

Protocol, interest in urban responses to climate

change seemed to be on the wane. Renewed

momentum came from a combination of rather

unlikely sources. In the USA and Australia, growing

political recalcitrance at the national level spawned

a growing movement of urban climate change

responses, including the expansion of the CCP

program and the emergence of the US Mayors

Climate Protection Agreement, which now numbers

more than 1000 members (Gore and Robinson

2009, US Mayors 2011). The actions of urban

politicians were critical to this new wave of

responses. For example, the development of the

C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group owes much

to the actions of the then-Mayor of London, Ken

Livingstone, and his Deputy, Nicky Gavron, as well

as to the engagement of mayors from other high

profile cities including New York, Toronto, and Sao

Paolo. Within the European Union, mayors have

also become involved in the climate change agenda

through the Covenant of Mayors, which requires

signatories to pledge to go beyond the EU target

of reducing CO2 emissions by 20% by 2020 through

the formation and implementation of a sustainable

energy action plan (CoM 2011a), and in 2011 has

more than two thousand members (CoM 2011b).

Alongside this, the private sector has been of

growing importance in shaping urban responses to

the issue. This includes both philanthropic organ-

izations such as the Rockefeller Foundation and the

Clinton Climate Initiative, as well as corporate

organizations such as Cisco, HSBC and Arup,

who are now actively developing urban responses

to climate change (Hoffman 2011, Bulkeley and

Schroeder 2012).

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103“ T O W A R D S L O W C A R B O N U R B A N I S M ”

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These developments have led to a growing

engagement with issues of climate change in cities

in the Global South. For example, some 50 local

authorities in India have participated in ICLEI South

Asia’s Roadmap project to conduct emissions in-

ventories and develop climate change action plans,

while 20 of the 40 cities included in the C40 Cities

Climate Leadership group are located in countries

in the Global South.

While climate mitigation continues to attract

the most attention, adaptation is increasingly on

the urban agenda. Existing networks have begun

to focus on climate adaptation and are seeking to

engage cities through the concept of “resilience”,

epitomized in the annual conference on Resilient

Cities first held by ICLEI in 2010. In addition,

the Rockefeller Foundation has established the

Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network,

a network of ten cities explicitly focused on climate

adaptation, and the UN-Habitat is working with

cities in Asia, Africa and Latin America through its

Cities and Climate Change Initiative to support

urban adaptation responses.

At least for some cities, climate change is now

a strategic concern and one that is more closely

aligned to the concerns of urban growth and

resource security that dominate urban agendas

(Hodson and Marvin 2009, 2010, While et al. 2010).

While the municipally based, voluntary response

to the issue which dominated the 1990s remains

pervasive, especially among smaller cities, this new

phase of urban responses to climate change is creat-

ing an additional form of climate politics (Bulkeley

and Betsill 2005, Bulkeley and Schroeder 2012).

BOX 1 The ICLEI 5-milestone process

An international non-governmental organization named ICLEI: Cities for Climate Protection (originally the International Council on Local Environmental Initiatives) has long assisted cities worldwide in tackling climate change. The group’s Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) campaign helped local governments reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through a five-step process:

Milestone 1 Conduct a baseline emissions inventory and forecast. The local government calculates greenhouse gas emissions across many sectors for a base year (e.g. 1990 or 2000) and for a forecast year (e.g. 2020). This inventory and forecast represent benchmarks for evaluating progress.

Milestone 2 Adopt an emissions reduction target for the forecast year. Local leaders establish one or more GHG reduction goals, a step that helps build political commitment and guides policy development.

Milestone 3 Develop a Local Action Plan. The city creates a Local Action Plan setting out policies and programs the community will undertake to reduce emissions and achieve its goals. Stakeholders must be involved in this process. Plans must include timelines, financing mechanisms, public education, and responsibility for particular actions.

Milestone 4 Implement policies and measures. The community implements policies such as to construct green municipal buildings, improve public transit and human-powered transportation options, construct renewable energy facilities, and cap landfills to reduce methane emissions.

Milestone 5 Monitor and verify results. Last but certainly not least, municipalities must monitor implementation of climate policies, update emissions inventories, and revise policies to ensure that GHG reduction goals are met.

In the early 2010s ICLEI changed this program’s name to the GreenClimateCities Network, and initiated other programs to help local governments develop renewable energy, become more climate resilient, and develop comprehensive sustainability policies. In particular, the organization has launched a global database of local climate actions that also serves as an online platform for cities to self-report GHG emissions and actions. More information is available at www.iclei.org.

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104

LOW CARBON URBANISM: NEW AGENDAS?

If initial urban responses to climate change

followed broadly similar lines, one of the marked

characteristics of the situation some 20 years later

is the sheer diversity of issues, initiatives and actors

engaged within the climate-change fold. Climate

change has become an issue that is affecting de-

bates across the spectrum of urban sustainability

issues. Of particular importance, however, has been

the emergence of a specific focus on low carbon

urbanism.

At the municipal level the idea of accounting

for and reducing GHG emissions has been part

of urban responses to climate change over the

past two decades. But as efforts to mitigate climate

change across urban communities have gathered

pace, a variety of forms of low carbon urbanism

have been articulated as the means through which

cities may be able to foster both their climate

change objectives and their long-term economic

development.

On the one hand, this has given rise to what some

have referred to as a politics of “secure urbanism

and resilient infrastructure” (Hodson and Marvin

2010) and others describe as an era of “carbon

control” (While et al. 2010). In such accounts,

a range of urban actors, including those within

municipal authorities but perhaps more significantly

those in national governments, international agen-

cies, and private sector corporations, have come

to view cities as arenas within which new forms of

low carbon economy can be developed.

Such projects may include the kinds of energy

efficiency measures with which municipalities have

sought to engage publics and private sector organ-

izations over the past two decades, but they are

also marked by a new interest in the development

of low carbon and “self-sufficient” forms of energy

infrastructure, including decentralized generation,

smart grid projects, and “zero carbon” developments.

Across a range of global cities, including, for

example, London, New York, Los Angeles, Mexico

City and Cape Town, new programs for reducing

GHG emissions have been accompanied by overt

references to enhancing the security and indepen-

dence of energy supply for cities and reducing the

costs of energy for residents (Hodson and Marvin

2010, Bulkeley and Schroeder 2012).

It is such principles that have also informed

the development by the Chinese government of

the “low carbon city” program, which was launched

by China’s Ministry of Construction and the World

Wide Fund for Nature in 2008 (Liu and Deng 2011,

p. 190), and which underpin the decision by the

Taiwanese Environmental Protection Agency to

build four pilot Low Carbon Cities (New Taipei City,

Yilan County, Taichung City, Tainan City) by 2014

(EPA 2011).

Corporate actors, from banks to supermarkets,

urban development companies, and utilities, are

increasingly interested in the opportunities of low

carbon urbanism. While this marriage of political

and economic interest in the development of low

carbon urbanism is becoming one dominant form,

alternatives are also visible which often have a very

different idea of how to secure and sustain urban

communities. One such example is the Transition

Towns movement. Initiated in the UK and now to

be found in cities in North America, Asia, and

Australia, the Transition Towns movement seeks

to promote self-sufficiency as a means of achieving

both community resilience and a response to the

twin challenges of peak oil and rising GHG emissions

(North 2010). Central to this vision is the notion of

community engagement and involvement – rather

than coming from the “top down” this is a vision

of low carbon urbanism that is developed from the

“bottom up” through local food growing projects,

energy savings, and re-engagement with the local

economy.

There is also evidence that alternative urban

responses to climate change are emerging in

cities in the Global South. One such example is the

Kuyasa project in the Khayelitsha area of Cape

Town. Financed through the Clean Development

Mechanism and led by the NGO SouthSouthNorth,

the project involved providing an energy upgrade

to low-income housing which reduced energy use

in households (hence yielding carbon savings) and

energy poverty, providing direct financial benefits,

as well as providing local employment opportu-

nities. Another, example is the case of the ViDA

(Vivienda de diseño ambiental) project in Monterrey,

Mexico, led by Instituto de la Vivienda de Nuevo

León, which has sought to develop a low carbon

model for social housing that reduces energy con-

sumption through passive design features and low-

cost energy efficiency measures. While experiencing

H A R R I E T B U L K E L E Y E T A L .

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105“ T O W A R D S L O W C A R B O N U R B A N I S M ”

T W O

several challenges in terms of its maintenance

and long-term energy savings on the ground, the

ViDA project has become a “best practice” example

for the national-wide “Hipoteca Verde” (Green

Mortgage) program. In this manner, it has become

part of a national response to demonstrate inter-

national commitment to addressing climate change,

but one which is not solely concerned with economic

security but where issues of social security are also

regarded as important.

These different examples show that exactly what

might constitute low carbon urbanism is still very

much in the making. However, in most cases, rather

than leading to the development of new forms of

urban planning, or to systemic efforts to transform

urban systems, what is emerging as a result of these

multiple efforts is a patchwork mosaic of low

carbon urbanisms – each different in its character,

politics and possibilities. While those which are

based on discourses of “secure urbanism” and

“carbon control” suggest that low carbon urbanism

is not only compatible with but essential to economic

growth (Hodson and Marvin 2010, While et al.

2010), alternative approaches suggest other forms

of development may be possible and that social

change may be an equally important component

to unlocking the potential of low carbon urbanism

as are technological developments and new eco-

nomic models.

REFERENCES

Betsill, M. and Bulkeley, H., 2007. Looking back and thinking ahead: a decade of cities and climate change research. Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability, 12 (5), 447–456.

Bulkeley, H. and Betsill, M.M., 2005. Rethinking sustainable cities: multilevel governance and the “urban” politics of climate change. Environmental Politics, 14 (1), 42–63.

Bulkeley, H. and Kern, K., 2006. Local government and the governing of climate change in Germany and the UK. Urban Studies, 43 (12), 2237–2259.

Bulkeley, H. and Schroeder, H., 2012. Global cities and the politics of climate change. In: P. Dauvernge, ed. Handbook of global environ mental politics. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 1–24.

Covenant of Mayors, 2011a. About the covenant [online]. Available from: http://www.eumayors.eu/ about_the_covenant/index_en.htm [Accessed March 2011].

Covenant of Mayors, 2011b. Welcome [online]. Available from: http://www.eumayors.eu/home_ en.htm [Accessed March 2011].

Environmental Protection Agency, 2011. Winners of low-carbon cities funding announced. Taiwan: Environmental Protection Agency Executive [online]. Available from: http://www.epa.gov.tw/ en/NewsContent.aspx?path=426&NewsID=2735 [Accessed November 2011].

Gore, C. and Robinson, P., 2009. Local government response to climate change: our last, best hope? In: H. Selin and S.D. VanDeveer, eds. Changing climates in North American politics: institutions, policymaking and multilevel governance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 138–158.

Hodson, M. and Marvin, S., 2009. “Urban ecological security”: a new urban paradigm? International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 33 (1), 193–215.

Hodson, M. and Marvin, S., 2010. World cities and climate change: producing urban ecological security. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

Hoffman, M.J., 2011. Climate governance at the crossroads: experimenting with a global response. New York: Oxford University Press.

Kern, K. and Bulkeley, H., 2009. Cities, European- ization and multi-level governance: governing climate change through transnational municipal networks. Journal of Common Market Studies, 47 (2), 309–332.

Liu, J. and Deng, X., 2011. Impacts and mitigation on climate change in Chinese cities. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 3 (3), 188–192.

North, P., 2010. Eco-localisation as a progressive response to peak oil and climate change – a sympathetic critique. Geoforum, 41 (4), 585–594.

US Mayors, 2011. Climate Protection Centre [online]. Available from: http://www.usmayors.org/climate protection/revised/ [Accessed May 2012].

While, A., et al., 2010. From sustainable develop- ment to carbon control: eco-state restructuring and the politics of urban and regional development. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 35, 76–93.

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106

Figure 1 Global greenhouse gas abatement cost curve. Exhibit from “Impact of the financial crisis on carbon economies: Version 2.1 of the Global Greenhouse Gas Abatement Cost Curve”, 2010, McKinsey & Company, www.mckinsey.com

H A R R I E T B U L K E L E Y E T A L .

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